From Grace Hopper to Shirley Jackson: Women in Science Quiz

Women! In science! If you're surprised to see that there were and are extremely successful and groundbreaking female pioneers in scientific fields, you better take this quiz before you embarrass yourself. Learn about or brush up on these enterprising and ambitious women in science.

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Question 1 of 30

Agnodice is a (possibly mythical) figure who is said to be the first female to what?

study and practice medicine in Greece

Agnodice supposedly was granted the right to be a doctor in the 4th century B.C.E.

conduct a research study

test on rodents

Question 2 of 30

Mary Anning has been largely forgotten to history, but she made great contributions to what field of science?

bird watching

paleontology

Anning lived in early 19th century Britain, where she discovered and shrewdly studied important fossil finds in the area.

botany

Question 3 of 30

Admiral Grace Hopper was a Navy officer who was also a pioneering what?

nuclear physicist

software engineer

Hopper invented the compiler, which translates code.

marine biologist

Question 4 of 30

Roger Arliner Young was the first African-American woman to earn a doctorate in zoology. What year was she born?

1938

1942

1889

The pioneering scientist and scholar was born in 1889.

Question 5 of 30

Lise Meitner worked to discover nuclear fission, but her role was overlooked when her collaborators received what prize?

the Medal of Honor

Nobel Prize in chemistry

While her partners were named as recipients of the 1944 Nobel Prize, Meitner was excluded despite her unarguable contributions to the findings.

Fields Medal

Question 6 of 30

Ada Lovelace was a 19th century British aristocrat who is credited for describing what?

evolution

nuclear reactions

the first computer program

The Countess of Lovelace (and Lord Byron's daughter) also worked on developing computational devices.

Question 7 of 30

Rozsa Peter was a Hungarian mathematician and leading contributor to the special theory of …

relativity

recursive functions

Recursive theory is something you no doubt know by heart.

quantum mass

Question 8 of 30

May Edward Chinn was one of the first female African-American doctors in the nation and also became a researcher and advocate for what?

Pap smears

Dr. Chinn was the first female African-American graduate of Bellevue Medical School and a researcher for Pap tests.

blood donation

birth control

Question 9 of 30

Lillian Gilbreth did pioneering work in industrial psychology and efficiency, along with engineering and management. Her family was also the model for what book?

"The Cat in the Hat"

"Little House on the Prairie"

"Cheaper by the Dozen"

Gilbreth was a mother of 12. Two of Gilbreth's children wrote the biographical book "Cheaper by the Dozen."

Question 10 of 30

James Watson, Francis Crick and Maurice Wilkins received a Nobel Prize for their work, but some argue that Rosalind Franklin, a fellow scientist, deserved just as much credit for her role in …

understanding cell structure

splitting the atom

identifying the structure of DNA

Franklin was also working to understand DNA.

Question 11 of 30

Emmy Noether helped develop a theorem that ties symmetry in nature to a corresponding conservation. But she also faced what challenge?

She was one of the first Jewish scientists fired in Weimar Republic.

Noether's theorem helped define huge theoretical physics ideas, but she was forced to flee Germany and died shortly after.

She wasn't allowed to wear skirts.

She had to pretend to be married.

Question 12 of 30

Maria Goeppert-Mayer won a Nobel Prize for nuclear shell structure research in 1963. What was her first field of study before nuclear physics?

astronomy

chemical physics

Goeppert-Mayer entered the nuclear physics field in her 40s. Before that she studied chemical physics.

quantum mathematics

Question 13 of 30

Helen Sawyer Hogg brought what field to a broader audience?

quantum mechanics

astronomy

Hogg worked as an astronomer her whole life, but she used television, newspaper and books to bring the stars to the general public.

civil engineering

Question 14 of 30

Annie Jump Cannon worked with several other women to develop a star spectra classification. She was also the first woman to …

get a faculty position at Harvard

receive an honorary doctorate from Oxford

Cannon's early 20th-century work included finding over 300 variable stars and five novae.

graduate from Princeton

Question 15 of 30

Rosa Smith Eigenmann was the first woman allowed to take graduate classes at Harvard. What subject did she study?

mathematics

physics

ichthyology

Eigenmann and her husband discovered and studied more than 100 species of fish.

Question 16 of 30

Women were not allowed to attend France's Ecole Polytechnique in the late 18th century, but mathematician Sophie Germain got around that by …

befriending male students and persuading them to let her borrow their lecture notes

Germain borrowed notes from students. She developed the basis of theories about vibrations on elastic surfaces as an amateur and was passionate about mathematics her entire life.

dressing up as a man

kidnapping a professor for lessons

Question 17 of 30

Margaret Gray Blanton was a speech language pathologist who created a battery of speech, literacy and articulation tests. She also had what passion?

square dancing

fiction and nonfiction writing

She wrote novels, short stories, plays and a biography.

car repair

Question 18 of 30

Gertrude Elion received what for her work pharmacology?

the first Massachusetts Institute of Technology doctorate for a female

the first female faculty position at Harvard

the Nobel Prize

She received a Nobel Prize. She was an unpaid lab assistant when she began her career.

Question 19 of 30

When was the first woman appointed to the faculty of Harvard?

1919

Alice Hamilton was an doctor of medicine who was appointed to the Harvard Medical School faculty.

1930

1935

Question 20 of 30

Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin discovered that stars are made mainly of what?

nitrogen and carbon dioxide

hydrogen and helium

She discovered that stars are mostly made of hydrogen and helium. She was also appointed the chairperson of the astronomy department at Harvard.

hydrogen and nitrogen

Question 21 of 30

Ida Hyde was a pioneering researcher in physiology, but she also devoted herself to …

advancing the careers of other women in science

She started a group that raised money for women's research studies.

gardening

subatomic particles

Question 22 of 30

Who was the first African-American woman to receive a doctorate from MIT?

Jewel Plummer Cobb

Mae Jemison

Shirley Jackson

The physicist is also the chairperson of the President's Intelligence Advisory Board.

Question 23 of 30

Danish geologist Inge Lehmann discovered the inner core of Earth using seismic waves in what year?

1936

Lehmann was the first to posit that Earth had an inner core in 1936.

1970

1947

Question 24 of 30

Barbara McClintock's work studying genetic elements was first dismissed, but it eventually earned her the first Nobel Prize in medicine for a woman in what year?

1992

1983

McClintock's research that found genetic elements could move along a chromosome was pretty much ignored at first. She got the Nobel Prize in 1983.

1943

Question 25 of 30

Jane Goodall is famous for her work with …

chimps

She's won the UNESCO Gold Medal for her research on chimps.

gorillas

orangutan

Question 26 of 30

Anthropologist Margaret Mead was introduced to a broad audience with her first book, titled what?

"Boys and Girls"

"Coming of Age in Samoa"

Mead wrote 23 books, all of which relied on observation. The first was "Coming of Age in Samoa."

"Marriage and Status"

Question 27 of 30

Maria Mitchell discovered what when she was 29 years old?

a stegosaurus bone

a new vitamin

a comet

The first professional female astronomer in the U.S. discovered a comet. She also joined the faculty of Vassar when it was first formed.

Question 28 of 30

Jewel Plummer Cobb studied skin cancer and cell division. But she also held what prestigious post?

chair of the biology department of New York University

president of California State University, Fullerton

Cobb was the president of California State University. Her work led to a better understanding of the causes of cell division.

NASA administrator

Question 29 of 30

Born in China, Chien-Shiung Wu worked on what important American project?

the Human Genome Project

the atomic bomb

Wu worked on the atomic bomb. She helped develop a way to enrich uranium ore in large amounts.

the Apollo space missions

Question 30 of 30

Marie Curie was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize. She has two Nobels; which fields are they in?

chemistry and physics

Her 1903 prize was in physics and radiation; the 1911 prize was in chemistry for the discovery of radium and polonium.